US teenager kills classmate, uploads ‘selfie’

A teenager in the US state of Pennsylvania has fatally shot a classmate in the face and then posed with the victim’s body for a “selfie”, reports say.

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 16-year-old Maxwell Marion Morton of Jeannette, Pennsylvania, is being held by police without bail on charges of first-degree murder, homicide and illegal possession of a firearm.

Morton shot dead his 16-year-old classmate, Ryan Mangan, before taking a picture with his body and uploading it to Snapchat, which allows users to send images that automatically get deleted from the recipient’s phone after a few seconds, the newspaper reported on Saturday.

According to Fox News, Morton sent the picture to a friend, who saved it. The person who received the image showed it to his mother who reported the incident to police.

“[Police] received a copy of the photo which depicted the victim sitting in the chair with a gunshot wound to the face,” a police affidavit stated.

“It also depicts a black male taking the ‘selfie,’ with his face facing the camera and the victim behind the actor. The photo had the name ‘Maxwell’ across the top,” it added.

According to police, the friend received more text messages from the killer, reading, “Told you I cleaned up the shells” and “Ryan was not the last one.”

Morton confessed to murder after police found a handgun hidden in his home.

Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot and killed in the United States. The US averages 87 gun deaths each day as a function of gun violence, with an average of 183 injured, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the Centers for Disease Control.

A non-profit website called Gun Violence Archive has recorded over 4,000 gun incidents in the country in 2015 (as of February 6). According to the website, 1,207 people have lost their lives to gun violence during the first 36 days of this year.